Trial opens in Indian land trust fund fiasco

December 11, 2001|By Robert L. Jackson, Special to the Tribune. Robert L. Jackson is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune newspaper.

WASHINGTON — Interior Secretary Gale Norton went on trial Monday for contempt of court, accused by a federal judge of lying to him about her efforts to clean up the long-mismanaged Indian trust fund system.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered testimony to begin about the department's mishandling of the multibillion-dollar fund, held in trust for 300,000 Native Americans.

It holds and distributes fees for 54 million acres of land leased for drilling, grazing and logging. The fund, the department concedes, has been mismanaged almost since its inception more than a century ago.

Norton, whose presence is not required at the civil proceeding, did not attend on the first day. She is expected later to testify that she has made a good-faith effort to correct fund mismanagement and tried to submit accurate reports to Lamberth, who has sought for five years to straighten out the system.

Mark Nagle, an assistant U.S. attorney representing Norton, told Lamberth: "Evidence will demonstrate that contempt of court is not warranted."

Thomas Thompson, the congressional overseer of the fund and the trial's first witness, said he found records in disarray dating back more than 100 years.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, a division of Interior, has been trying to establish an accurate database, "but it is pretty clear there wasn't anyone managing the process on a day-to-day basis," Thompson said.

He began looking into the fund at the request of Congress in January 1999.